Israel and The Deaths It Caused in Airstrikes on U.N. Facility

Holden at First Draft, in a post aptly titled, "You Would Think They Have Something to Hide", offers us some salient background information on Israel's 6-10 hour long air attack on a U.N. observer post in Southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

As you may recall, Israel angrily denies it attacked deliberately despite some strong evidence that IDF (Israeli Defense Force) was notified repeatedly before and during the engagement and that the building was clearly marked and long established. Yes, Israel could get huffy, but when U.N. chief Kofi Annan said this was no accident, Israel denounced him; at the same time, the rabid right wing in this country mounted a disinformation campaign to make the U.N. seem culpable in an attack against them. I know about the disinfo campaign first hand because I have more than 300 emails from the rabid righties.

Here's the beef, as presented by Holden:

Israel, the next OJ. I'm sure they won't rest until they find the killers.

[Israel's U.N. ambassador] Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli airstrike that demolished a post belonging to the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four U.N. observers were killed in the Tuesday strike.
Meanwhile, the wife of the Canadian soldier who is missing and presumed dead in the attack lashes out.

The wife of a Canadian observer who was killed when an Israeli jet attacked a United Nations post in Lebanon blamed Israel on Thursday for the incident and said its forces had been firing on the spot for weeks.

Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener is presumed dead, although his body has yet to be found. Three other U.N. observers -- from China, Austria and Finland -- died in the border post in Tuesday's attack.

"Why did they bomb the U.N. site? In my opinion those are precision-guided missiles (so) then that it is intentional," his wife Cynthia told reporters at an army base in Kingston, Ontario. Her comments were carried by CBC television.

Israel denies its forces deliberately targeted the UN site. The United Nations says it asked Israel a dozen times to stop bombing near the post in the hours before the attack.

"And that wasn't the only day they were firing on that base. My information from him (the major) is that week upon week they had been firing on there, bombing near it," said Hess-von Kruedener.

[snip]

"That was their duty. They were U.N. observers. The building was clearly marked, the vehicles were clearly marked, they're clearly marked as U.N. observers. So why were they (the Israelis) firing on that base?" said Hess-von Kruedener.